They didnt play it safe with the 3DS at all^

Yes they did, and it wasn't intended as an insult. The 3DS is in every possible sense an upgrade to the DS, rather an an entirely new handheld. Even it's primary "innovation" was a second hand idea, and was nothing but an interesting visual aesthetic that a lot of people turn off.

There is nothing wrong with playing it safe, often times it's the better thing to do, but denying that they did would be silly :P

And how is the Vita any different? How did Sony not play it safe? They upgraded their multi-media gaming device. It got no where near the sales the PSP did because it was unnecessary

Nintendo's strategy with the 3DS was not playing it safe. Nor was their dangerously bad execution of it The WiiU and the 3DS are both upgrades that are meant to carry on the spirit of their last generation systems.

The Vita was a far bigger change from the PSP than the 3DS was from the DS P: Massive graphics upgrade, 2 cameras, OLED touch screen, dual analog sticks and a rear touch pad. I personally prefer the 3DS as it's game line up is waaaay ahead, but the Vita was certainly more "innovative" compared to it's predecessor.

Would you care to explain how the 3DS wasn't a safe bet? Because from what i can tell they made a grand total of one risk, and even that came with an off slide :P Take away the visual upgrades and the 3DS is a DS with an analog stick (which is perfectly fine, because the DS was incredible).

Vita's sales shouldn't be compared too the 3ds... They can't compete at all and really... its no fun seeing a dead console die even more as the days pass...

Vita sales should be compared to the 2ds however (if we can find out what that is)... Thats gonna be a fun thing to see even though I have a feeling its only a matter of time before the 2ds goes pass the vita as well but its more entertaining none the less

Even if the 3DS were to be discontinued after this year the Vita wouldn't out sell it. :p

Portable gaming is so dead to me. It's sad.

None of that is innovative at all. Its progression. Natural progression. Sony had good ideas with the touch screen and added in back track pad. And two analogs? What the hell? Innovative? The PSP had a claw man. they literally added a stick. The craft design was craft

I cant seriously be reading Graphics as an upgrade. Fuck it  glasses free 3D is  just as much of an "innovation" in that sense I mean 3D is a graphics enhancer.

Im not even making the point that the 3DS overall design motive( staying with clamshell, but motivated by the increasing lurch by smartphones on the industry. Basically it evovled off their ideas for streetpass and various other feature sets that spear headed the design for it) but what is coming out of you is absolutely ludicrous.  The 3DS's hardware design isnt a safe bet. Thats for sure, Nintendo did a lot of stuff that could have severely backfired with the 3DS. But they got over that by bringing a first party line up of games that shits on the original DS's output quality wise.

Nintendo's absolutely brilliant when it comes to utilizing their ideas they get for software to make new types of hardware. The 3DS shows this in the internals with the streetpass/free to play games on it, the N64 showed this, the Wii showed this, the WiiU may show it eventually(but in the end that was made more as a response to how the third parties felt with the Wii)

Is this supposed to be used as a life lesson to prepare xbox fans for the future?

Or is it the opposite and is designed to show playstation fans that sales can't matter on one system but not another?

I never said the Vita itself was innovative, i said it was a bigger change from the PSP than the 3DS was from the DS. I put "" marks around the word innovation for a reason :P

Anyway, you say i'm spouting rubbish but have yet to actually name me a single thing about the 3DS's hardware that could have "severely backfired" ^^ As i said, take away the lackluster 3D and upgraded graphics and you are left with a DS that has an analog stick. I hardly call that taking a risk.